


Slow Burn

by GrimLiFiendish



Series: Jason’s Realization [3]
Category: Pretty Little Liars, Pretty Little Liars Series - Sara Shepard
Genre: Arson, F/M, Jaria, PLL Fanfition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 13:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12912552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimLiFiendish/pseuds/GrimLiFiendish
Summary: Synopsis: What happened at the winter formal?Another sequel Could Have Been Love, when I am not so lazy I will move these to their own file since there is now three parts to this.Characters: Jason DiLaurentis, Aria Montgomery, Alison DiLaurentis, Spencer Hastings, Emily Fields, Hanna Marin, Garret ReynoldsPairings: Jason/AriaSong Inspiration: Slow Burn by Apocalyptically.





	Slow Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Jason was gone he knows nothing about A, who is still very much a presence in the girl's life.  
> Warning: this is a rough draft for the most part, but I did fix some errors and stuff, hope it is a little less confusing.

**January 2012**  
Jason felt like his flesh was burning it was like a fast-furious flame rapidly consumes all it comes in contacts with. No this was like a slow burn, slow, sizzling, smoldering from shoulder to thigh where her body touched his, the embers of his desire for her was licking his skin and when he turns to look at her he knows that he isn't the only one who feels it, they’ve had these feelings and need for each other for so long, Before it was appropriate he was fighting these feeling, ignoring them acting as if he felt nothing for her, lying to himself and then she came to him that night.

A night he had felt so lost and was so close to giving up. She had been his salvation that night. She had saved him from the rapid fires of addiction and self-loathing, had saved him from fear. He lied to himself even that night, even as he begged her to stay with him in his arms. A part of him that he ignored was screaming to beg her to stay with him forever. But he had been unable to ignore the ache and the slow burn of the desire that had ignited when she held him in her arms and he kissed her and she had responded as if she had always been his lover, as if she were his. Not his sister’s fifteen-year-old friend, until she stopped him because of her lack of experience, he was still burning with need and desire for her even as he feel asleep almost immediately from exhaustion.

The nightmares were held at bay, even in his dreams that night he was dreaming of their bodies burning together as he made love to her and she promised never to leave, never to fade away. The morning come and he reached for her, but she was gone as if it had all been a dream except he, could smell her oh his pillow and his clothes. It was faint, but he could smell the traces of lavender soothing his soul until reality set in and he realized he was in love with her and it scared the hell out of him and he ran away.

It took him over two years, but he had come home. He came back because his sister had been found, he come back to sisters he didn't even know he had. But, he had come home to Aria as he always meant to do. He, Spencer and Alison were bonding, growing closer every day and now he had Aria too. Life felt so close to perfect he was afraid he might wake up. He turned his head and looked at her she smiled at him telling him she loved him leaning to kiss his jawbone and trail kisses down the side of his neck causing the flesh to prickle with desire keeping his eyes trained on the road he angled his head and she captured his lips with hers in a quick, but passionate kiss .

"Eww gross, do we really have to see that," Alison and Spencer exclaimed jokingly. Jason and Aria chuckled as she laid her head against his shoulder wishing they were alone like they had planned.

They were heading to the lake, Jason got a new camera he and Aria wanted to try out. Alison overheard him telling Jessica and she had wanted to come, obviously, and bring her friends. He had said no, but Alison had gotten her way and he had to wait for them, Garrett had showed up and decided to come along as well. Aria as usual was the last to arrive and when he seen her he forgot that he was aggravated with Ali, her friends and Garrett only focusing on his girl. She almost tripped over her long skirt as she ran apologizing for making him wait, but he didn't care he would wait forever for her if he had to, when she was close enough he wrapped her in his arms kissing her, almost afraid to let her go.

When they reached the lake, they piled out of the car and Garrett went to do his own thing. Jason thought his sisters and the other two girls would do their own thing so he and Aria could be alone, but Alison had other plans demanding he take pictures of her and the girls instead. He finally gave in just to get her to shut up, he lifted the camera and aimed, but something was wrong. The girls all looked younger, like they were thirteen he looked at Aria and she was also younger and she was fading. He grabbed her arm begging him not to leave him, but she disappeared even as he tried to pull him to here. As he called for her to come back to him, his sisters and the other girls began to disappear also. Jason was screaming for Aria, he was afraid and alone, his body on fire. He jerked awake his head throbbing as he set up beneath the pictures taken so long ago, his dream had incorporated that day with the mess he made of things with Aria, she hadn't been with him at all. His mind going back to that day that was partially responsible for changing his life even though he didn't know it at the time.

July 2007  
It was been a few days before his eighteenth birthday, before he moved on to hard liquor and even harder drugs, before the NAT club disintegrated into an excuse for Ian and Garrett to film minor girls in various stages of dress and opportunistically spying on neighbors during indelicate moments. Jason and Garrett finding themselves with nothing to do decided to head out to the lake. His mom had given him his birthday gift early, she had bought him a camera he had been eyeing for several months and he wanting to try it out at the lake thinking he could get some great shots of the lake and surrounding forest. 

Alison overhearing him telling their mom obviously she wanted to go with him and bring her friends as well. He told her no, not wanting to be bothered by the group of giggling girls he referred to as the Power Puff Girls, but as usual she got her way and he much to his annoyance found himself having to wait until the girls arrive.

As usual Aria was the last to arrive. Ali, Spencer, Hanna and Emily had already piled in the back seat by the time Aria got there. Garrett was already sitting in the front and Jason was looking at his watch an annoyed look on his face. Aria stumbled an apology almost tripping on her long skirt as she hurried out of breath to the car before noticing where she would have to sit. Jason rolled his eyes in exasperation. He knew Aria had a crush on him and was surprised Alison hadn't figured it out. She wasn't trying to entice him with her feminine wiles, but it was hard to miss with all the blushing and stammering if he was forced to talk to her. When he was around she tended to look down at her shoes. Already slightly clumsy as a result she would trip and almost fall. If Garrett and Ian wouldn't make such a big fucking deal out of the little goth girl crushing on him it would actually be kind of cute.

Jason got in after Aria, rolling his eyes once again when he seen her blushing when his elbow accidentally brushed against her arm when he started the car. It could be worse, he reasoned, she could be trying to chase after him which had happened with of few of Ali's friends in the past. But in the past Alison's friends had been like her aggressive and vindictive and it had been easy to be as ignorant as he had to be to get them to leave him alone, but these four girls were very different from Alison and not so easy to be an asshole to. 

The girls in the back were giggling hysterically and Garrett was picking at them causing Hanna and Emily to blush, Spencer give him a disapproving stare and Ali was smirking as if she knew something the rest of them didn't. Annoyed with the noise and having to deal with the car full of people he didn't want Jason turned up his radio. Much to Alison's annoyance he wouldn't switch it to the pop station she listened to and groaned, following suit the other girls groaned as well, except for Aria, who quietly sang along surprising Jason that she knew the Joy Division. He had thought that like his sister she was into Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers and the way she dressed was just for attention.

When they got to the lake, Garrett quickly went off to score some action, this could be beer or babes though he was hoping for both. Jason expected the girls to do the same and apparently so had the others, but Ali had other ideas, demanding that Jason take photos of her and the girls. Her four friends looked uncomfortable with the idea, but eventually they agreed because Ali had to have her way. Jason refused, but she whined and complained following him around until he finally agreed to get her to shut up and leave him alone. 

He took a few group shots of them and a couple of each girl individually, but most of them were of Alison who loved having her picture taken even it her friends weren't so keen on the idea, By the time she was satisfied he has used up almost all of one of the rolls he had brought.

He had been walking around about an hour using a black and white when he seen her standing alone as if in a world of her own. Aria had a habit of wandering off alone so it wasn't a complete shock to see her alone now, but it was the first time Jason had every really noticed how beautiful she was. Her face free of her usual dark makeup, long dark hair glistening in the sun as she looked off in the distance, she turned to look out over the lake as the breeze off the lake ruffling her hair and skirt, she raised on hand to hold her hair back; he didn't realize it yet, but that was the moment Jason DiLaurentis had fallen a little in love with Aria Montgomery. Without thought of why he was doing it Jason snapped the photo and two more after it, the shots were amazingly beautiful shots in their simplicity and the feelings that had just blossomed to life were somehow evident in those pictures. 

When he developed the film, they were his favorite pictures he had taken in a long time, maybe ever. Her face was hidden from view no one would ever know it was Aria or that he had taken them he reasoned as he packed them up to take to the framers along with a couple landscapes he had been meaning to have framed. He bundled up the rest of the pictures he had taken of Alison and the Power Puff Girls giving them to her before he headed to get his pictures framed.

Present  
After that day Jason stuffed the feelings that had awakened down and only revisited them in occasional dreams when his subconscious was in control. When he would be awakened if he remembered them he pretended they meant nothing and erase them from his mind in the same manner he did all his problems. By the time she came to him that night he was a pro at pretending he felt nothing for Aria, but after waking up the morning after he had fallen asleep in her arms he could no longer pretend, the floodgates of his feelings for her had burst open he ran scared and now he was paying for that move.

It had been weeks since the debacle that was the winter formal. Christmas had come and gone as had New Year's Day and all without getting a chance to speak to Aria. She was no longer even coldly polite. He had thought that after her admission things would become easier, but she only pushed him further away. His only comfort was that she and Ezra were no longer together. 

He didn't know what was said after she took off, but by the time he went back to the dance she was back pointedly ignoring him until her mother came to pick her up. The girls had tried to talk her into staying, Alison even joking that she would happily share her "date" giving Jason a pointed look as if his parents forcing him to escort her was somehow his fault. Jason would have been more than happy to be shared with Aria, but the idea hadn't set well with her at all. Apparently, it was his fault that Ezra had overheard her screaming that she could never love Ezra like she did him.

Jason hear a knock on his door and Alison came in carrying and new bottle of water and his antibiotics and the other medication the doctor had prescribed. "Hey sleepy head, feeling any better?" Jason had been sick with the flu for four days and Alison and Spencer were getting worried and their parents were out of town. She felt his head and he was burning up, Alison had gotten sick first and had given it to him when he was taking care of her. Jason started to get up but she scolded him and told him he needed to stay in bed, he lifted a weak hand and gestured he needed to use the bathroom when his voice came out in a hoarse whisper hurting his throat. Alison nodded and helped him regain his balance when he stumbled.

Jason groaned his body aching as he painstakingly made his way to the bathroom and then back to his bed. He felt like crying not only because he felt like crap, but because everything was just so messed up. With a glance at the pictures that he had hung over his bed almost five years ago, it was the only way he could be close to her then and now. He closed his eyes again trying to sleep, but the same images that had tormented him over the last couple years flashed through his mind, but newer, more painful memories now joined them. At least in the old ones Aria trusted him and held him in her arms offering everything in her eyes, in the newer ones she would respond until she remembered what he had done and push him away. Sleep seemed pointless and he tried to sit up, but was too week and the he heard the voices in the hall way.

He recognized the voices of his sisters, Aria, Hanna and Emily their tone worried and desperate. Something was going on with them, but he hadn't figured it out yet, they each had a haunted look as though they were afraid something terrible was about to happen, he had asked his sisters, but they laughed telling him he was imagining things. He had never been particularly close to Emily and Hanna and Aria was no longer even coldly polite to him, she was openly ignored his very existence so asking her anything wouldn't work. As he tried to concentrate on their words his head grew dense and foggy and he feel back to sleep.

Jason tossed and turned his mind reliving the events of the past; of the day at the lake and how he pretended she annoyed him, when Aria came to him after Alison disappeared and he ran away from her and then coming home to her only for her to reject him. He dreamed about seeing her with Ezra and about the dance holding her in his arms kissing her and her screaming that she could never love anyone like she loved him. With each remembered embrace his mind begs her not to leave him his body is sizzling a slow aching burn consuming him and then he dreams of lavender and she holds him once again in her arms. Even in his tortured sleep, tears running down his face he begs for her not to leave him. 

She holds him closer telling him she loves him that she always will that she wished she could stay with him forever. She is still caressing his back gently, telling him she never wants to leave him as she gently places kisses across his lips, eyes, and forehead he wants to kiss her back, but he is too weak, it is as if his limbs and head weigh thousands of pounds each and he can’t lift them, she tells him to relax. She cradles his head to her chest and whispers in his ear, telling him again she loves and asks him to be patient, she says that as soon as it is safe she will be come to him and they can finally be together. it was a promise and now Jason settles down as her hands run soothing circles down his back and he breathes in lavender, he never wants to wake again.

But he does wake up. The next morning, his fever is down some. He had slept better than he had in a long time. He thinks it is because he dreamed Aria held him all night telling him she loved him, now he is awake, reality sets in and he is alone. It was all a dream. He rolls over burying his head into the other pillows seeking the coolness they would provide against hot skin when he catches a scent. He pulls it closer breathing in the scent of lavender and Aria. His eyes popped open, it hadn't all been a dream, but she was gone. He desperately tries to remember what she told him, but because of the high fever his mind was in too much of a fog and her words have faded away just as her scent clinging to his pillows, covers and his skin would soon fade too.

Fin

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: not completely happy with this, I had too many thought running through my head making me feel almost as confused as Jason is supposed to be,  
> Because I suck at describing clothes, with the help of some outfits already put together on polyvore and piecing together what I liked, here is what I envision Aria wearing that day,
> 
> I think it is apparent to anyone that has read more than a couple of my stories that I have an obsessive need for a back story, in order to try to keep even one shots from becoming overwhelming I often add the backstory of my fanfics to the notes and with that being said...  
> In case anyone is wondering... Since Jason and his family were both gone until Alison came back he knows nothing about A, who is still very much a presence in the girl's life. On the note of he and his family being MIA for over 2 years, his parents are divorced, but with Ali's return are trying to work things out and they never sold the house. Maybe they leased it to them for a year if you want imagine Maya still a part of Emily's life or they bought a different house.


End file.
